Tennessee woman gets over 3 years in prison for blocking clinic access during protest

NEW YORK (AP) — A Tennessee woman was sentenced Wednesday to over three years in prison for using threats and violence to interfere with the operation of a New York City reproductive health center in the early days of the pandemic in 2020.

Bevelyn Beatty Williams, 33, of Ooltewah, Tennessee, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to three years and five months behind bars by Judge Jennifer L. Rochon.

She noted that Williams organized the June 2020 protest at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Manhattan and livestreamed it, bragging about it afterward, even though the hand of a worker at the clinic was injured when Williams tried to push a door closed as the worker attempted to let a volunteer enter.

The judge cited seven other criminal convictions for Williams as a factor in the sentence. Williams was convicted in February at a two-week trial of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

Williams had tearfully requested leniency, saying she was traumatized by a bad childhood and an abortion she underwent in New York City when she was 15 but had since found religion as a source of inspiration.

“If I wasn’t saved, I would have punched that woman in the face,” she said of the woman whose hand was injured.

As she announced the sentence, Rochon told Williams: “You cannot commit crimes, even in the name of a religious cause.”

The judge said Williams had threatened to terrorize the health facility and delivered on the pledge with violence and physical force, preventing some people from getting health services that day.

An indictment said Williams boasted on her livestream of the protest: “This is going to be a wonderful day. We are going to terrorize this place. And I want the manager to hear me say that. We are going to terrorize this place. More people are coming.”

Prior to the announcement of the sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner said Williams in 2022 also had blocked access to clinics in Fort Myers, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee, as well as Atlanta.

Steiner urged a sentence of at least three years in prison, saying it was an important prosecution “to ensure that men and women in our community will continue to have free access to medical care.”